With the rapid rise in e-commerce sales, more and more goods are being delivered to residential and business addresses. As a result, parcel delivery services are now experiencing record delivery volumes. This increased volume has also led to corresponding increases in road traffic, energy use, and labor expenses, in an effort to continue meeting society's demand for delivered goods.
In general, attempts to streamline the parcel delivery process have focused on central distribution facilities. In particular, many parcel delivery services now utilize large delivery hubs that coordinate deliveries from centralized locations. Within a given hub, packages may be sorted and routed for delivery. However, deliveries from the hub to the addressees still require a fleet of delivery vehicles. For example, a package may be loaded onto a delivery truck at a local hub and driven by a delivery driver to the final destination. Once there, the delivery driver may manually carry the package along the final leg of the delivery route from the delivery truck to the drop off location (e.g., the front steps of a house, the foyer of an apartment complex, etc.).
In some cases, a delivery service may attempt to deliver a package multiple times to an addressee. For example, certain goods may require a signature confirmation from the addressee, to ensure that the delivered goods are actually received by the addressee. If the addressee is unavailable at the time of delivery, the delivery driver may be forced to return the package to the hub and attempt re-delivery of the package at a later date.